Was the "Master Code" of Facebook deleted, putting Facebook and Instagram in jeopardy of being "gone forever"? No, that's not true. After an outage lasting most of Monday, October 4, 2021, the two social media platforms were up and running again and Facebook said it had been fighting a network issue, not master code deletion. The claim appears in an…

Did World War II result in socialism being "beat?" No, that's not true: socialism, one of the many adopted ideologies of the era that continued into the later 20th century, is not the same as "national socialism," more popularly known as Nazism, an ideology that was adopted by the Nazi Party of Germany. Socialism aimed to solve problems of economic…

Was former President Bill Clinton found dead in a jail cell at Guantanamo Bay, and was it ruled a homicide by poison? No, that's not true: This claim was made on Real Raw News, a self-described satirical website that publishes articles like this one for "entertainment purposes." There is also no publicly available evidence to support this claim. Clinton was…

Did the White House set up a fake scene to deceive the public about President Joe Biden's COVID-19 booster shot? No, that's not true: The White House was clear about where the scene was shot, namely the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is on the grounds of the White House complex but in a different…

Does a 52-page pdf entitled, "The Vaccine Death Report" show how dangerous and deadly COVID-19 vaccines are? No, that's not true: This document contains an international cast of claims that have already been debunked. The vaccine disinformation in this collection carries with it a secondary level of baseless conspiratorial beliefs underpinning most of the talking points that are summarized at…

Did President Joe Biden order dishonorable discharge for 46% of U.S. service members who refused COVID-19 vaccination? No, that's not true: Although the Biden administration opposed sections of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) designed by the 117th Congress related to service members and the military COVID vaccine mandate, the administration did not order service members who oppose COVID vaccination…

Does the 2021 infrastructure bill include a $6,500 tax on dairy cows, $2,600 per head tax on beef cows and $500 per head tax on swine? No, that's not true: There is no such language in the infrastructure legislation, according to the publicly available text. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on September 28, 2021. It opens:…

Do two shiny gumdrops per day cure COPD? No, that's not true: Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the American Lung Association include gumdrop-form medications on their list of tested and approved medications for treatment of the condition, whose full name is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. COPD afflicts smokers, those with asthma and those with industrial smoke or chemical…

Does the photo in this social media post show the first version of the Statue of Liberty, and was it sent back to France? No, neither is true: The photo is of a different statue, in the Caribbean nation of St. Martin. The first Statue of Liberty, sent to the United States in 1884 by France to celebrate the abolishment…

In this video, did trial lawyer Reiner Fuellmich's "Coronavirus Investigative Committee" reveal new evidence of claims that COVID-19 is no worse than seasonal flu, can be treated with vitamins and ivermectin, is not accurately confirmed with PCR tests and that the approved vaccines are ineffective and untested? No, none of that is true: Fuellmich recycles stale conspiracy theories that have…

Does suramin or pine needle tea cure autism and serve as an antidote to people's adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: There is no evidence pine needle tea contains suramin, a drug invented by Bayer in the 20th century. The claims about suramin are made without evidence by a leading propagator of COVID and vaccine misinformation. While…

Did Berlin citizens cast a "decisive vote" on the expropriation of 240,000 privately owned apartments? No, that's only partially true: In a referendum, proponents of expropriating large real estate companies won by a large margin, but it's not legally binding for the newly elected parliament. Whether the socialization of apartments owned by landlords who each possess more than 3,000 apartments…

Is the Biden administration implementing a per-mile "driving tax" that would charge U.S. drivers an estimated eight cents per mile? No, that's not true: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which has not passed at the time of writing, only details a pilot program for a vehicle-miles traveled fee (VMT fee). Additional legislation would have to be passed to implement…

Did Joe Rogan lose his Spotify deal and millions of dollars after he promoted the horse dewormer, ivermectin, as the cure for COVID-19? No, that's not true: The blog that wrote the claim, Laughing in Disbelief, is a satirical blog with a disclaimer on its content. Rogan is still making content for his podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," and Spotify…

Do the COVID-19 vaccines contain "sharp metal pieces" or some kind of "metal structure"? No, that's not true. A video claims doctors and scientists have performed a new experiment where they looked at vials of "pure vaccine" for multiple COVID-19 vaccines under a microscope and observed metal and metallic pieces in the liquid. Documents posted by the Food & Drug…

Did U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert live-tweet Speaker Nancy Pelosi's whereabouts during the January 6, 2021, insurrection? Not exactly: Boebert tweeted when Pelosi was removed from the House chamber, but did not tweet where Pelosi was specifically located or headed in a building with 540 rooms and 850 doorways. The claim appeared in this meme on multiple social media accounts, including…

Did this Reddit post, which migrated to other platforms, chronicle a transgender parent forcibly giving their child the female hormone estradiol so that their son could transition into their daughter? No, that's not true: The content was made by internet trolls who wanted to make strangers angry with a fabricated story. The site rdrama.net -- one of the first sites…

Did the Arizona audit show that Donald Trump won the state? No, that's not true: The audit in Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous county, showed that Joe Biden beat Trump there by nearly 45,000 votes. That edge contributed to Biden's victory in the state as a whole, where he won by close to 10,500 votes. The claim appeared in a…

Are cargo ships being prevented by U.S. states from unloading goods, causing a backlog? No, that's not true: Although there are dozens of waiting ships at U.S. ports that is resulting in a delivery backlog, the backlog is the result of supply chain problems, changes in consumer demand and port worker availability, not by states preventing ships from unloading their…

Did 39 school bus drivers and monitors from School District 308 quit their jobs in defiance of a vaccine mandate on September 21, 2021? No, that's not true: Thirty percent of the district's school bus drivers did call in sick in the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 21, 2021 -- but there were no bus driver resignations. Classes in…